Caroline Manuel knows what it’s like to lose precious family photos. She lost everything in Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago and moved to Orange.
“I don’t even have a picture of myself as a baby,” she said.
When she saw a clear plastic container fall off the back of a pickup truck on 16th Street as it turned onto Sunset Drive, she recognized picture frames. She stopped and picked it up, even though the large box had cracked and broken on the end where it hit the street.
She tried chasing after the pickup, but couldn’t catch up.
The box had an address and the name of Ricky Hargrove. She went by the house twice but couldn’t get anyone to answer a door. Like thousands of people in Orange County, the house flooded and the family’s belongings are piled to the side of the road.
The house is next to KOGT, so late Thursday afternoon, she knocked on the station door and asked about getting in contact with the family. KOGT took the box and made a few phone calls.
Hargrove said he had been driving up and down 16th Street looking for the box. “She took me out of deep depression into feeling okay,” he said.
The box had three generations of photos that were saved from the water.
Manuel is a car detailer and said her residence was flooded during Harvey. But she was still thinking of others.
Pauline Hargrove is superintendent of the Little Cypress-Mauriceville CISD. She didn’t even know the family treasures were lost until they were found.
She plans to give Manuel a big hug. “I don’t know this lady, but we now have a relationship.”
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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